When AMD launched Llano last summer, we were pleasantly surprised to see that its idle power consumption was competitive with Intel's latest offerings, particularly when you consider the CPU cores inside were essentially the same as those found in their old Athlon II and Phenom II counterparts, which were sorely lacking in that department. The A10-5800K and A8-5600K, the opening salvo from AMD's second generation APU lineup thankfully continued this trend while also offering a boost in both CPU and GPU performance. The A10-5800K and A8-5600K also offer unlocked multipliers for easy overclocking, making them particularly attractive to budget enthusiasts looking to get as much value as possible for their hard-earned dollar.

The AMD A10-5700.

Quad Core Desktop Trinity Lineup

Model

Clock
(Max Turbo)

GPU

GPU
Clock

Radeon
Cores

TDP

Street Price

A10-5800K

3.8 GHz
(4.2 GHz)

HD 7660D

800 MHz

384

100W

US$130

A10-5700

3.4 GHz
(4.0 GHz)

HD 7660D

760 MHz

384

65W

US$125

A8-5600K

3.6 GHz
(3.9 GHz)

HD 7560D

760 MHz

256

100W

US$110

A8-5500

3.2 GHz
(3.7 GHz)

HD 7560D

760 MHz

256

65W

US$105

The A10-5700 takes another approach, appealing to a different demographic: Those willing to take a hit in performance in exchange for superior power consumption. Not only does such a chip cost less to operate in the long-term, it's also easier to cool, making it a friendlier option for quiet/silent PCs and small form factor cases. The 5700 is essentially a slower version of the A10-5800K with a CPU clock speed slowed by 400 MHz (200 MHz when Turbo Core is maxed out). The GPU is also clocked down by a mere 40 MHz for some odd reason. All this translates into a substantially lower 65W thermal envelope.

When considering the cost of a system, the CPU/APU is only part of the equation
as the price of motherboards varies greatly from platform to platform. In the
chart above, we added the current street price of the chips compared today to
those of an average compatible motherboard from Newegg.
The following criteria were used for the motherboards: retail versions, Asus/Intel/Gigabyte/MSI
branded, microATX/ATX form factor, SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3.0 controllers (outrageously
priced models were omitted). The average motherboard price turned out to be
US$137 for LGA1155, US$115 for AM3+, US$82 for FM1, and
US$105 for FM2.